Soapbox Science Exeter 2022 speakers
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Shayma Alathari
How to track viral outbreaks and help farmers in remote areas
Shayma is a PhD researcher investigating possible changes using sequencing devices in remote-resource limited areas in the world, assisting in fighting hunger and malnutrition
Twitter: @AlathariShayma
Rebekah Boreham
Fish on Painkillers: More Than a Headache
Rebekah Boreham is a third year PhD student who uses glow-in-the-dark fish to study drugs in the environment. She will be talking about how medicines we use everyday end up in rivers and how they can impact wildlife.
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Twitter: @RebekahBoreham
Dr Muriel Brückner
Why tiny shrimp can change our coasts
How our coastlines look, all depends on tiny shrimp and worms!
Geomorphologist Dr. Muriel Brückner studies the effects of small digging organisms on coastal landscapes. She will explain how she uses computer models to understand the effects of holes and mounds built by these organisms on our beaches and what they mean for our coasts.
Twitter: @mbru42
Katy Chapman
Late night snacks: How do bumblebees gather food at sunset?
Katy is a third year PhD researcher in sensory ecology and behaviour. She will introduce the life cycle, foraging/pollen gathering behaviour, and visual ecology of bumblebees and relate this to the effect of light conditions at sunset on bee foraging.
Twitter: @KatyEChapman
Dr Emma Edwards
Capturing renewable energy from the ocean
I will go over high-level aspects of different technologies that extract energy from offshore, including wave energy, offshore wind, floating wind turbines and tidal energy.
Twitter: @_emma_edwards
Georgina Glover
Conquering the world by embracing diversity: no two bacteria cells are the same
Georgina is a final year PhD biomedical physics student. On the soapbox she will talk about how no two single bacteria cells are the same, how exactly they differ and how this allows them to 'conquer the world'.
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Twitter: @_GeorginaGlover
Dr Frances Hopkins
The smell of the sea, plankton, and climate change
Frances is a Marine biogeochemist at Plymouth Marine Laboratory. She will describe how the familiar 'smell of the sea' is a vital part of Earth's natural climate regulation system, where it comes from, and how it might change in future.
Dr Tina Joshi
Beat the Bugs- how to tackle dangerous microbes
Dr. Joshi is a lecturer in molecular microbiology at the University of Plymouth. Dr. Joshi specialises in infection control of clinically-relevant bacteria (Clostridium difficile) and development of molecular diagnostics for antibiotic resistant organisms.
Twitter: @tinaljoshi
Ailsa MacCalman
Pancreas development - it’s in your genes
The pancreas is an incredibly complex organ which is essential for the maintenance of blood glucose levels in the blood. Despite it’s important role, little is known about how the pancreas develops, my research explores genetic features require for development.
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Twitter: @ailsamaccalman1
Dr Megha Mehta
Shining Supernanoheroes! A Bright Future for Diagnostics and Healthcare
Megha is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Exeter where she is working on the Raman Nanotheranostics (RaNT) programme. She will be talking about her work developing injectable nanoparticles for cancer detection and therapy, which involves designing and synthesizing intelligent gold nanostructures with special optical properties.
Twitter: @m_suden
Dr Sophie Nedelec
Commotion in the ocean!
Traffic noise annoys coral reef fish! Dr. Nedelec is a marine biologist who works on underwater sound. She will be talking about how coral reef fish use sound, how they are disturbed by underwater traffic noise, and what we can do about it.
Twitter: @SophieNedelec
Dr Mi Tian
Hydrogen: fuel of future
Hydrogen has been hailed as a fuel of the future that could help end the world's dependence on fossil fuels and aid the transition to net-zero emissions. But for this hydrogen revolution to occur, some significant obstacles need to be overcome. Dr Mi Tian is one of the Top 50 Women in Engineering 2020 and has expertise in Hydrogen Energy. She will talk about the role of hydrogen energy in the future energy system, the problems that hydrogen energy faces, and how engineers solve these problems.
Twitter: @mitianzhang
